


Anamnesis

by sith_shenanigans



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends: Knights of the Old Republic (Video Games)
Genre: Also Probably Some War Crimes, And A Large Number Of Gizka, Canon-Typical Violence, F/F, Found Family IN SPACE!, LGBTQ+ characters, Minor canon divergences, Novelization
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-30
Updated: 2020-09-30
Packaged: 2021-03-08 03:34:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,225
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26728990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sith_shenanigans/pseuds/sith_shenanigans
Summary: Here is a fact: Darth Revan was captured alive, to the shock of the Jedi Council and Republic High Command.Here is another fact: you cannot brainwash someone into redemption.Anamnesisis a story about choice, unforeseen consequences, and the terrible urge to be oneself. It’s not a tragedy. It’s not quite a redemption arc. It’s the galaxy getting saved in the worst way possible, by the worst person possible, for all the right reasons.Amnesia didn’t do a thing to change Revan’spersonality, after all.
Relationships: Female Revan/Bastila Shan, Female Revan/Juhani
Comments: 10
Kudos: 52





	1. Prologue

_303 BTC_  
_Duneeden_

“Doctor,” Bastila said. “How is the... patient?” She had to force the word out of her mouth, past harsher ones like _prisoner_. They were both true, she reassured herself. And the first was more pressing.

“Awake and restless,” Doctor Yann said, with a wry look. “Her physical recovery has been _remarkably_ quick, considering the state she was in when I first saw her. With proper physical therapy, she’ll probably be combat-ready again in only a few more weeks—though I’m sure you’ll be pleased to know that her mental injuries have necessitated a lighter regimen than she could otherwise handle.” Their voice was downright sardonic, making it _very_ clear what they thought of the military’s—and Jedi’s—priorities. Yann had sworn one of the stricter doctor’s oaths, which was why they’d been trusted with this job in the first place, but they clearly loathed the circumstances they had walked into. 

Bastila swallowed her own discomfort. “Is her mind healing too?” she asked, keeping her tone level. “How quickly?”

“She’s beginning to remember me for days at a time, though I expect at least some of that is the _willpower thing_ that you people do. A lot less suggestible, too.”

“Any trouble?”

“She’s a former terror of the galaxy with an attention span currently measured in gizka,” Yann pointed out. “By that metric, things are going disturbingly well. She’s started asking for you, though.”

Bastila’s blood went cold. She wished, deep in her heart, that she could say that she was surprised... “If her false memories are otherwise holding,” she said, “then speaking with the patient seems—unnecessary.” But curiosity was getting the better of her anyway, damn it. “What exactly does she want?”

“‘The woman who brought me here,’” Yann quoted, with a passible attempt at Rev— _the patient’s_ accent. “She doesn’t know what happened and seems to accept that she won’t remember, but she knows you saved her life.” Their glare was positively _acidic_. “Funny, isn’t it.”

“I don’t know what you’re accusing me of, Doctor, but I assure you—”

“I think she remembers exactly what you’d like her to remember,” Yann said. “And I suppose it’s not my place to argue those specifics, now is it?”

“No, it’s not,” Bastila snapped, “because you’re _wrong_. She forgot everything, yes—you’ve seen the brain damage yourself.” She lifted her chin, daring the doctor to deny it. “If anything remains of her old life, it’s something she held onto. Not something I put in.”

There was a sigh. “I believe you,” Yann said, resigned. “You have no idea how far you’re pushing my oath, but I believe you.”

“Should I have just killed her, Yann? Tried to put a woman with no memories on trial?” Bastila shook her head. “This is the best we can do for her. I promise.”

“No, it’s not.” Yann snorted derisively. “But that’s between you and High Command, I suppose.” 

“I answer to High Command, for as long as I am in this war. I answer to the Council, and will for the rest of my life.” Bastila’s voice was clipped and reproachful; she knew she was being needled, but she couldn’t stop herself from bristling. “They made this decision, Doctor. The rest of us have to live with it.”

“Maybe so.” There were a few moments of silence, and then: “I think you should speak to her, though.”

“Doctor Yann—”

“You rewrote that woman’s whole life, Bastila. Maybe she was a monster before, but now she’s a head trauma patient, and you’re all she has.” Yann stared into Bastila’s eyes, unflinching. “And don’t try to tell me she has us! When she’s healed, she’ll be shipping out with you, and she’ll be a person as well as a live grenade.” They shook their head. “Treat her like one, Jedi, or there will be a price to pay—by the Void, I guarantee you that.”

Bastila had to stop herself from taking a step back, struck by the doctor’s sudden vehemence. “I—yes,” she found herself saying. “You win, Doctor. I’ll speak with her.”

* * *

Someone had, for some reason, brought the patient a swivel chair. She was using it, idly spinning herself—with her hands, thank goodness, not the Force—as she stared into the distance, her expression somewhere between thoughtful and troubled. Like there was something she was trying to consider, out past the walls. 

She looked… uncomfortably vulnerable. This was the woman who had brought the Mandalorians to their knees, who had turned on the Republic for what seemed like no reason at all, who had been willing to burn _worlds_ on her dark crusade and never once mention why—and this was what she had been reduced to. A prisoner with no name, no past, and no goal, anonymous even to herself.

Her eyes were hazel green, now—they had been a daunting orange-gold, at the beginning—but there was still a terrible sharpness behind her gaze. It came around to meet her visitor’s, and it was only Jedi training that kept Bastila from flinching away. But Revan _smiled_ at her, with horrible sincerity, and that was so much worse.

“Hey,” said a voice that had ordered atrocities. “I guess I’ve been cleared for visitors, huh?”

Bastila swallowed. _There is no emotion_ … “Yes. Do you remember what happened?”

“I’m told I won’t,” Revan said, with all apparent lack of concern. She rolled her shoulders and stood, shoving the chair back into the desk she’d been given; it was covered in sheets of flimsi. Most of them looked like notes she’d written to herself. “The doctor says it was an accident at the end of basic. It was… vehicle-mounted weapons training. Someone lost control of their bike and hit me. And—you were there, for some reason—” Sparks of pain blossomed in the Force around her, and she squeezed her eyes shut, clearly trying to push through them. “You were observing,” she bit out. “We were being considered for a posting under you. I was told that, when I asked. And you saved me. I… _remember_ that.”

The pain faded. Bastila realized her own hands were shaking, just slightly. She took a deep breath and recentered herself, focusing on her shielding. It was important, when she touched others’ minds so closely, to remember to protect her own. “Very good,” she said, and somehow her voice stayed cool and even. “I’m told you’re retaining memories now?”

“For a while. The doctor has me writing things down, so I don’t forget. And so they can track my recovery.” Revan laughed, quiet and wry. “And, I suspect, so that I stop asking the same questions every day or two.” 

A couple months ago, her retention had been measured in hours at the most. Bastila had been there, day after day, barely sleeping, as she wound and rewound the threads of memory. _Your name is Hestera Soral. You are a soldier of the Republic. You are good, and loyal, and you have never dreamed of command or glory or the deep whispering of the Force. There is nothing on your conscience but the occasional blithe or petty moment, and you are happy as you are._

It was the only mercy Bastila had been able to give her. 

“Hey. Don’t get lost in thought on me,” Revan said, quietly. “It’s not… do you think it’s your fault? It’s not your fault, Bastila. I should have dodged faster, and that’s all.”

“It is. I was—ah, a distraction.” The words came out of Bastila’s mouth too hastily, because what she was thinking was: _I never gave you my name._

“I should have anticipated it.” 

Real feelings, rationalized. Bastila could feel a swell of bitterness, staining the Force between them, and had to stop herself from reaching out a hand. “Don’t,” she said. “If there is someone who should have reacted faster, it’s me—you’re not a Jedi. You could never have dodged in time.”

“Then I should have noticed that he was losing control,” Revan said, with a minute shrug. “You don’t need to reassure me, I promise. I’m alive, and I’ve learned my lesson.” A grin tugged at her lips. “Which is more than most people who catch speeder bikes can say.”

Bastila winced. She was, suddenly, not the liar she wished she was; her mouth stubbornly refused to disgorge any of the things she should have been saying.

Revan took this in, watching her intently for a moment, and then looked wry. “I suppose I washed out of that evaluation, huh?” she said, her voice still strangely soft. “But I wanted to see you before you headed out to win this war. This is probably the only opportunity I’ll get to thank you, Bastila—so thank you. It was an honor to even have the chance.”

_Don’t look at me like that,_ Bastila thought, desperately. There was an absolute intensity in that gaze, and it held her like she was the only thing in the galaxy. _Like I’m—_

She couldn’t finish the thought, but it finished itself: _Like I’m **you**._

“No,” she said. “That is, you didn’t wash out. You’ll be coming with me.”

A blink, and then another smile, as bright and sharp as the point of a saber. “Thank you again, then,” said Revan, sweeping a bow. “I will not let you down.”

“I’m sure you won’t,” Bastila assured her, and wished that she too would forget this. That the whole conversation would vanish from her memory when it vanished from Revan’s, instead of haunting her like she knew it would.

She was never, ever going to escape the look in those eyes.


	2. The Sleepwalker

_303 BTC_  
_The_ Endar Spire, _Taris space_

It was like snapping back to existence. One moment, there was nothing but the Void—

The next, there were alarms.

Hestera glowered muzzily at the ceiling, swore in a language she was too tired to name, and rolled out of bed. “ _Kark_ being third shift,” she muttered, grabbing around for a locker that wasn’t there. Where were her boots? They should have been…

Except she’d been in medbay for the last two months. 

She took in a deep breath, then let it out. Focusing had been difficult; she could remember very little of her recovery period, but the splitting headache she’d been living with was very, very hard to forget. It was gone now, though, and when she took in her surroundings—they felt real.

_Good._

It was nice to be able to think, even if, strictly speaking, there wasn’t very much to think _about_. Hestera found her locker, pulled on her boots and her uniform jacket—at least, she thought wryly, the petty officer wouldn’t care she’d been sleeping in her pants—and headed for the exit with a well-drilled calm. She opened the door—

Or didn’t, because it was extremely locked. 

This made sense, on some level. The doctor had only been mostly sure she was well enough to resume duties; if she’d wandered off and had a memory lapse halfway to the training gyms, that would have been very inconvenient for everyone. But the ship was under attack and she was locked in her bunkroom, which was, currently, very inconvenient for _her_.

 _This is,_ she thought, distantly annoyed, _a very poor design choice._ The alert should have let her out, damn it. What if an evacuation order had come through? 

Or maybe it was just pragmatism. A head trauma patient with a gun, walking into a combat situation…

There was something morbidly comforting about that thought. At least someone, somewhere, had done the math. 

Hestera sighed, quietly, and fished through her belt pockets for something to pop the door panel with. She didn’t have the first idea about slicing, but if there was ever a time to learn—well, she didn’t have anything better to do. _And my kit has a multi-tool. Excellent._

(Her fine motor control seemed to have entirely returned to her. That was a distinct relief.) 

She had gotten two of the fiddly little bolts out by the time the door slid open, revealing her roommate. Human, tall, old enough to have been weathered a bit—yes, she vaguely remembered meeting him, a couple days ago. His name eluded her.

There was a moment of awkward silence. He stared at her. 

“I see you’ve saved me the trouble,” said Hestera, grinning as she straightened up. “The rescue is appreciated. You’re my bunkmate?”

“Trask Ulgo,” he said, and thereby moved up a notch on her favorability scale. “I’m surprised you’re—alert. But it’s good, all things considered. You ready to move?”

“I am a picture of military readiness. Unless you happen to be a speeder bike.” 

Trask chuckled, maybe despite himself. “Not last I checked,” he said. “Come on—we’ve got to go. Bastila’s on the bridge; we need to make sure she gets out.”

 _I need to get to my station,_ she didn’t say, because she couldn’t quite remember where it was. _I’m a green crewman, and she’s a Jedi,_ she didn’t say, because if she was asked to die for the Republic’s best hope, she’d do it in a heartbeat. “You’ll have to lead the way,” she said instead, voice low. “Head trauma, and all that.”

He nodded and raised his rifle again. “I can do that,” he said. And they moved. 

* * *

The ship was eerily empty, all sound and shaking metal around them. Hestera kept pace a half-step behind Trask, her rifle a cold weight in her hands. The pair went quickly—not running, because that was how you ended up taking a Sith soldier to the chest and a blaster bolt right after, but hustling from one point to another, glancing around, and then doing it again. 

“We’ve evacuated,” she said, as he bent to hotwire a lock. “Haven’t we.” (It wasn’t a question.)

That got a grunt of contrition. “The bridge crew’s mostly dead,” he admitted. “Onasi put out the evac order, but the loudspeakers aren’t working. Hope you aren’t going to run for the escape pods?”

“I didn’t enlist to save my own skin.” Hestera frowned and took a step away from him, on edge in a way that was somehow different than before. More immediate, maybe.

 _Itchier_.

The headache was beginning to come back, a throbbing at the base of her skull that was difficult to ignore. _Not now,_ she thought. _Void, not now._ “Trask—what’s on the other side of that door?”

“One of the main junctions. Why?”

She set her jaw against the pain. “Just a bad feeling.”

“It _is_ pretty exposed,” he muttered, half to himself. “Maybe you’ve got a ship map in that subconscious of yours… alright. I think I can get it open.” He glanced up at her. “Be ready for a firefight.”

She felt ready for a firefight. (She felt like she had never been so ready for anything as for a firefight.) The ship trembled under her feet, her head was pounding again, and a squad of two was just asking to be crushed on numbers alone—but, Void, something in her was certain she had a chance. “Yes, sir.”

(He had a second lieutenant’s stripes on his uniform, which shouldn’t have been an afterthought, but that was adrenaline for you. It cared about threats to life and limb, not protocol.)

Trask clipped something to the mess of wires he’d been working, began to gesture for Hestera to take the other side of the door, and then nodded when he saw she’d already done it. “Three,” he muttered, raising his rifle, “two, one…”

The door opened. Time stopped, or possibly exploded—for a sliver of a moment, Hestera thought _grenade_ , but it was only a blaster bolt hitting a conduit. She snapped off a return shot at the trooper who’d fired it before she’d really registered their presence, turned as they fell, and then (the Sith troops were reacting so slowly) dropped another of the shiny black-armored squad. Trask, taking cover beside the doorframe, had managed to take out a third. That left two remaining—

One launched themself at her, holding a kriffing vibroblade, and she fired and missed and—in a beautiful, vicious moment—parried _with_ her blaster rifle, the blade whining and sparking as it pressed into the metal. Hestera pushed forwards, grinning horribly, and then suddenly shifted to wrench the sword out of her opponent’s hand. They grabbed for it, but her rifle was apparently undamaged enough to fire; their fingers never reached the hilt. 

She fired another shot into their head to make sure.

(Three kills. Her first—but adrenaline seemed to have inured her to any immediate psychological reaction. Good.) 

Time unthickening around her, Hestera picked the blade up in her left hand, letting her strap take most of the rifle’s weight, and turned. Trask, breathing hard, had managed to take out his own melee combatant before they got to him. 

He eyed her new weapon dubiously as she approached. “You trained with that, Crewman?”

“Sure. Anti-Sith measures. Even if the best we can do is slow them down…” She allowed her rifle to drop completely, clicking the safety on as she did, and offered him a hand up. “I suppose those two were expecting Jedi.” 

Trask accepted the hand, frowning. “They know we’ve got Bastila,” he said. “They’ll have come equipped to meet her guard. Ah—good shooting, by the way. You feel okay after that?”

She did. She felt better than okay, honestly, especially since the pain had faded in the heat of the moment. “I do,” she said. “No telling how I’ll feel once the adrenaline wears off, of course—sir.” She swept a critical eye across her surroundings. The hall junction was littered with bodies from both sides, including a Jedi who looked like they’d been dropped by a lightsaber to the chest. “But I somehow don’t think that’s going to be a problem.”

“Good. That’s good.” Trask didn’t sound entirely reassured, but he bobbed his head in a brief nod and gestured for her to follow him into the graveyard of a junction. It looked like about thirty corpses total, more from the Sith side, most of those from lightsaber wounds—the Jedi and his unit, outnumbered but not overwhelmed until an enemy Force user had arrived. The Sith was nowhere to be found, which was half good (two normal soldiers would barely be a speed bump), half worrying (if the enemy had already found Bastila, if she was captured or dead—could the Republic still win?), and fully out of their hands either way. 

Seized by a sudden thought, Hestera bent down and relieved a fallen soldier of his grenades. “Looks like he’s used two,” she murmured, turning the bandolier over in her hands. “That leaves us with four. Want one?”

“What? Oh.” Trask made a face. “I wouldn’t have thought to do that, but… yes.” He held out a palm.

She set a grenade into it. “Don’t think of it as looting,” she said, with a mirthless smile. “Think of it as conserving materiel.” 

“If you’re looking for a moral argument, I don’t have one. Doesn’t mean it leaves a good taste in my mouth.” Trask walked another couple feet down the hall and turned, scanning the various exits for more attackers. The alarm wailed. Another impact shook the ship. His perpetual frown deepened, and he headed towards a side corridor. “They’ve cleared pretty far on the main route. If we want to get there without running into that Sith—or _those_ Sith, Void forbid—we should try another way.”

“Any chance that Bastila has evacuated already?” Hestera asked, moving to follow. “Or left the bridge, at least? I don’t like our chances that they haven’t already gotten there.”

Trask’s voice was leaden. “We haven’t been blown into scrap. She’s still aboard.”

Ah. If the evac had been given, that made perfect sense—though it only spurred Hestera’s hopes that Bastila was giving the Sith a merry chase. “Hold on a moment, then.”

“Huh? What for?”

She was already moving. “I’m going to get that dead Jedi’s saber.”

His boots thumped hurriedly on the floor behind her. “Absolutely not—” he began, far too vehement, and then she heard him let out a breath. “What do you even want it for? They’re not like vibroswords—your instincts would be all wrong!”

“Not if what I want is a plasma cutter.” She grinned back at him, the idea glittering in her head like a newborn star. It wasn’t much. It really wasn’t much. But it was a step in the right direction—a reduction in their travel time—a flicker of hope snatched from this slow-motion defeat. She half-skidded to a stop beside the Jedi’s corpse, already bending to pick up the weapon. Her fingers closed around it, and—

—a black wave of pain nearly laid her out on the floor. Something about the way she’d moved disagreed with her immensely; the hilt dropped from her hand and rolled away, her reflexes too pain-dizzy to grab it.

Trask snapped it up. She made a small, incoherently frustrated noise, and he shook his head, his expression a mask of worry. “I… think I should hold this,” he said, quietly, “if your concussion’s still that bad. Can you stand? I—don’t want to leave you…”

But he would have to, if she couldn’t move quickly. They were far past the point where a wounded soldier might be dragged to the escape pods. Gritting her teeth against the grim pounding of her skull, Hestera nodded and shoved herself up, fighting the way the world spun and wove around her. That damn alarm kept shrieking, which _really did not help_ , but somehow she stood and kept standing; somehow she followed Trask as he began to move again. “Don’t slow down,” she bit out, even as she wobbled on her feet. “We don’t have time for that, I don’t need pity—”

“Crewman Soral,” he snapped, “hold yourself together.” He grabbed her arm and pulled her along, and after a dizzy, fumbling moment, she felt steadier for it. “We can still do this, but not if you’re trying to fight me as well as the enemy. Is that clear?”

Hestera swallowed an indignant comment, bit down hard on her cheek, and said, “Yes, sir.” Then, unable to let it go: “I’m fighting my damn _concussion_ , not you.”

“Then don’t fight me over your damn concussion, yeah?” The length of his rifle swung awkwardly from his strap, threatening to whack both their knees, and he sighed. “Can I let go, or—”

“It passed,” she said. “It’s passing. Let go.”

He did, and she breathed a sigh of relief. Halfway throwing herself towards that saber had been a mistake, but at least she wasn’t going to die for it—the headache _was_ receding quickly. (If she got out of this, she was going to ask a medtech whether that was normal for concussions.) The pair recovered their earlier ground and pushed forwards down a side hall, Trask stopping to carve an awkward hole through the first door they came to. Then, on the other side of that small meeting room, the second. Hestera almost went to help him shove it forwards, but—someone needed to be combat-ready if there were hostiles on the other end.

There weren’t, thankfully. The door-turned-scrap-metal landed with a horrible clang, and a panting Trask walked over it. “Those things are harder to move than it looks,” he said, wry. “I’m not asking for a hand, but…”

“Maybe you should give me the saber,” she said, voice low. “If I’m injured, then it’s better that—ah, that I be the one in that position.”

“Crewman, please stop trying to heroically sacrifice yourself.”

“Lieutenant,” she replied, “with all due respect—better me than you.”

Trask stalked towards the far wall, that humming sky-blue blade still lit. “No,” he said, in a tone that brooked no argument. “I won’t have that on my conscience. I didn’t get through the Mandalorian Wars with my soul intact to—” He cut himself off abruptly, once again shaking his head. “But all that was before your time. The answer is no, and that’s final—you’re under my command, you’re my responsibility, and I take that seriously. Got that?”

 _And if you die, and I suffer an attack at some crucial moment?_ Hestera almost asked, but his face was so absolutely set that arguing would only waste time. And they didn’t have time to waste. “No. But I won’t fight you—sir.”

“A commander’s got to keep their soul,” he muttered, almost too quietly to hear over the hum of the saber. The wall spat sparks as he cut a ragged archway into it, working the saber up and down almost like it had mass, expression filled with a desperate kind of determination. He really believed Bastila’s life was riding on this, she thought—that they were going to make the difference. 

It was somehow not a surprise at all to realize she believed it too. 

* * *

There had been three of them on the ship, at the beginning—three handlers, either far too few or far too many. Enough for the secret to be precarious. But the second had died before Trask’s eyes, going to him because she couldn’t get his quarters open, and the third was Bastila herself.

He hurried the person who wasn’t Revan anymore through the dying ship, the knuckles of his left hand going white around the hilt of a saber he didn’t have a clue how to use. They dodged a small series of conference tables as they went, one still showing a flickering display. He cut out another door—they were almost there, he thought—in silence, and some part of him remembered the old days of the old war. He’d seen how the Jedi did it, and they really had made it look easy. Maybe it was telekinesis.

Room number four was lined with consoles, all blinking red or orange. The door, he knew, opened back onto the hallway just before the bridge. He stepped towards it, lightsaber raised—

And the gravity cut out, taking the lights with it. 

Trask swore, just a breath out of sync with his amnesiac charge—though her invective was a lot more creative than his. He held the saber away from himself and fumbled for a handhold, muttering “damn, damn, _damn_ ” under his breath. At least the blade was a decent light source.

There was a small scraping sound as Hestera shoved the point of her vibrosword against the ceiling, using it to lever herself towards the door. She got her fingers around the small handhold beside it and twisted, giving him that unsettling grin of hers. He never would have imagined she’d smile so much—that the face behind the mask could have been so expressive. But the expression itself was entirely believable, thin and crooked and adrenaline-touched. “Need a hand, Lieutenant?”

It was only the saber-light that made her look like some kind of phantom, and Trask wasn’t a superstitious man anyway. He took the offered hand—and then cursed again as the power chose that moment to cut back in. Miraculously, he managed to avoid sticking the lightsaber into himself, his charge, or the vacuum-bordering wall to the left. 

Less miraculously, he bashed his knee on the door. 

Hestera laughed. It was a strangely warm sound, especially in the midst of their near-hopeless situation; she disentangled herself from the ungraceful heap she’d landed in and tapped the point of her sword on the doorframe. “Do you, ah… need another hand?” she asked, clearly swallowing more inappropriate mirth. 

“Think the last one did enough damage,” Trask said, with a grudging chuckle of his own. He pressed the hilt against the doorframe, flicked the saber back on, and began to cut upwards. It was only efficient, after all. Him needing a moment to get his balance back was—well, no, not entirely immaterial, at least not if he wanted to keep a straight face.

He could hear her move at his back, shifting back into a combat-ready stance. “Well, then,” she said, voice soft and teasing, “next time I’ll be sure to leave you in the dark.”

Trask was saved from having to reply—he had never been the sort to banter in a crisis, before all this—by a crackle of static from his ear-comm; he pressed his unoccupied thumb against it in a flash of terrified hope. “Hello? This is Second Lieutenant Ulgo—is someone out there?”

“ _This is Captain Onasi. I’m tracking your life signs at the emergency station._ ” He let out a short, sharp sigh, the sound warped by comm distortion. “ _I’ll be quick—Bastila is on her way to the escape pods. You and whoever’s with you need to follow, fast. Got that?_ ”

“Roger,” said Trask, dragging the hilt down the final length. “We’re nearly at the bridge; came through the auxiliary ops rooms. Route?”

“ _Second door on the right of the bridge,_ ” came Carth’s response. His voice was tight with well-warranted impatience.

Trask put his shoulder against the door and shoved. “En route,” he grunted out. 

“ _Good. Out._ ”

The metal slab hit the ground, revealing… no enemies, but a hell of a lot of corpses. Mostly Republic, but there were a large number of ex-boarders scattered around as well. One wall was scorched like someone had flung a grenade at it and held it there—which might have happened, if it had been thrown at a Jedi. Or a Sith. But there were no dead Sith in the hall, and a couple Jedi—young ones, maybe younger than Bastila—lay slumped against each other, killed fighting back-to-back. It was a tragedy the way all battlefields were, empty and brutal and pointless.

Hestera’s gaze lingered on the fallen lightsabers for a moment too long, sending Trask halfway into panic, but she just shook her head and nudged one towards its former wielder with the tip of her boot. “What a mess,” she muttered.

 _What a mess._ Trask swallowed a feeling he had no name for—not grief, not anger, but just as hungry for closure—and headed towards the second door on the right, ignoring the bridge’s double-doors entirely. “No time to dwell on it,” he said, for her benefit and his. 

“I know.” Her voice had a strange cast to it. She plucked a grenade from her scavenged bandolier as she followed, her rifle now hanging abandoned at chest level; Trask took private note of that, suspecting another bad feeling. 

“Onasi,” he said, touching his ear-comm, “can you play mission control? If you’ve got _our_ life-signs…”

Static still reigned, but Carth’s voice was audible: “ _Five behind that door, in from a side hall. Damn. There’s no other route, not without adding more time than you have—_ ”

“Let us worry about that,” said Trask. “Crewman—the voice guiding me says there’re five on the other side of that door. Onasi, can you get it open?”

“ _Tell me when._ ”

Hestera lifted the grenade, watching the door with calculating anticipation. “They say yes? Stand back.”

Trask hurried behind her, shoving the lightsaber into a belt pouch and lifting his rifle in both hands. “Do it,” he said, and the door slammed open.

Hestera lunged forwards, hurling the grenade ahead of her; the enemy only got off a couple panicked shots before it exploded in their midst. Most of the Sith soldiers didn’t move again—Trask fired at the one that was still trying to raise their gun, hitting them in the leg—

The vibroblade plunged into the soldier’s less-armored rib area, making a distinctly horrible noise, and Hestera pulled it away bloody. “Can you get me on that comm channel?” she asked, without so much as pausing for breath. 

Trask wrestled down a sense of whiplash. “I can try. Onasi, can you reach Soral’s comm?”

“ _Working. Bastila’s almost here, by the way—if the Sith couldn’t sense her, we’d probably all be dead. Hurry._ ”

There was another hiss of static as Hestera’s ear-comm connected. “Thank you,” she said, her voice overlaying itself in Trask’s ears. 

They had been moving as this happened, Hestera holding her bloody sword like someone more practiced—even if Trask knew it was wrongly practiced—than she was supposed to be. Her adrenaline-spurred levity had disappeared, leaving her expression hard and feral. Maybe some part of her could feel them running out of time. 

Trask watched his charge less than he watched the hallways, his gaze flitting about, his ears straining to hear any approach. The alarms had died with the power, but hadn’t come back with it; now it was eerily quiet. His heart thumped in his chest. He wasn’t afraid to die—or at least he told himself he wasn’t—but his body was, and he at least didn’t want it to be _now_. Not when it wouldn’t matter.

They were a bit over halfway down another hall when the comm again crackled to life. “ _Bastila’s pod is launching, ten seconds. There’s one left, but—oh, fucking Sithspit, enemies are converging on the pod room. Move!_ ”

It wasn’t clear which of them broke into a run first. Maybe they did it at the same time, as synced up as if Bastila had been working her magic—though the idea of having Hestera’s mind linked to his was more terrifying than compelling. It _was_ clear, though, that his charge was the faster one. She outpaced him quickly, skidded to a stop before a T-junction, flung a grenade down the hall to her right, and then hastily gestured for him to follow her straight through. He did, with barely a glance at the people she’d just taken out—a tech and their two guards, from the flicker of unarmored skin he caught. Probably trying to stop a launch.

The most important launch had already happened. Now he had another duty, even if he was—strictly speaking—being towed along in its wake. 

It was Hestera that reached the pod room first, barely pausing to let the door slide out, breathing a tiny bit too evenly for someone who had run a true sprint. She snapped a salute at Carth as she came to a stop, and he gave her a small nod in return. If he was taking the situation badly, it didn’t show as more than a slightly grimmer cast to his eternal seriousness. He gave Trask a more pronounced nod, and said, “Lieutenant.” That was all before he turned to the console beside the last pod, entering in the codes to begin its opening and launch protocols.

Trask shifted on his feet—not panicking, but a bit nervous somewhere in the back of his head. _Let us make it,_ he thought, though he had little faith anyone was listening. _Let them not fire on their own damned people, for once, and save us all by accident._

“Come on,” Carth muttered, “unseal, damn you…”

Hestera was moving again, eyes fixed on one of the doors. She mouthed something—with her expression, it looked like a curse.

Trask began to say something, though he wasn’t sure exactly what he _could_ say, when he was supposed to keep her convinced her intuition was only intuition. It didn’t matter. The thought died on his lips as a red saber plunged through the seal around the doorframe, cutting far more steadily than he’d managed.

“Shit,” said Hestera, quietly. Then, with no change in tone: “Onasi?”

“It’s unsealing!” said Carth. “Come _on_ , you piece of junk…”

A pause that lasted only a heartbeat, only an inch of progress on that molten line. “Trask,” Hestera said, in a hard-edged voice that could have come from High Command itself. “Put your arm out—yes, like that—and stab through the door. Now.”

Without thinking twice—without thinking _once_ —he lit the saber and flung himself forwards. He slammed into the wall, arm flung wide, saber pointed to pierce the middle of the door. 

It was, objectively, the most absurd combat maneuver he’d ever pulled. 

The red blade vanished. Trask staggered back again, hoping to avoid it reappearing in his elbow; after a few moments, it instead reappeared in another part of the door-seam. But—time bought. Precious instants.

There was a hiss as the pod unsealed, and a sound of scrambling. “In!” snapped Carth’s voice. “Go! Go! Lieutenant, now!”

 _This is it,_ Trask thought. _This is how it happens…_ “You go,” he said, circling around for another jab—could he do it? He tried, but the Sith had repositioned enough that there was only a flicker in the enemy weapon. “They’ll get in—go, both of you! Launch!”

“Don’t be _stupid_ —”

“Resealing,” said Hestera, in that same unflinching tone, as the red saber cut the final inch and Trask scrambled back to avoid being squished. “Launch protocol engaged. I’m sor—”

There was a clunk as the pod ejected.

“Well, well,” murmured Bandon—and it _was_ Bandon, even if he didn’t look much like himself anymore. “I’ve missed your last Jedi by inches, haven’t I? No matter.”

 _You have no idea how wrong you are._ Trask swallowed, looked up into his old comrade’s eyes, and raised the lightsaber. “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, I guess you did.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hate writing beginnings. I hate writing beginnings so much that I procrastinated writing any of the six I _should_ have been writing in order to start on a _different_ beginning, which I hated writing slightly less.


End file.
